Top 348 Quotes & Sayings by Oliver Goldsmith
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Irish novelist Oliver Goldsmith.
Last updated on September 16, 2024.
Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long.
Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
All that a husband or wife really wants is to be pitied a little, praised a little, and appreciated a little.
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, 'Twas only when he was off, he was acting.
I love everything that's old, - old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.
The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.
As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent; whence must necessarily arise a desire of attaining knowledge with the greatest possible ease.
Ceremonies are different in every country, but true politeness is everywhere the same.
I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.
Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.
Life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.
Tenderness is a virtue.
Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.
They say women and music should never be dated.
Girls like to be played with, and rumpled a little too, sometimes.
The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.
Romance and novel paint beauty in colors more charming than nature, and describe a happiness that humans never taste. How deceptive and destructive are those pictures of consummate bliss!
Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.
Where wealth accumulates, men decay.
If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.
You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.
Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law.
Be not affronted at a joke. If one throw salt at thee, thou wilt receive no harm, unless thou art raw.
People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.
The jests of the rich are ever successful.
Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray, what charm can soothe her melancholy, what art can wash her guilt away?
A great source of calamity lies in regret and anticipation; therefore a person is wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future.
Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better.
There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.
Pity and friendship are two passions incompatible with each other.
Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.
I was ever of the opinion, that the honest man who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single, and only talked of population.
Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning.
Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.
Surely the best way to meet the enemy is head on in the field and not wait till they plunder our very homes.
A man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is a vagabond.
Could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet.
With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.
The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself.
The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.
Villainy, when detected, never gives up, but boldly adds impudence to imposture.
If we do not find happiness in the present moment, in what shall we find it?
A boy will learn more true wisdom in a public school in a year than by a private education in five. It is not from masters, but from their equals, that youth learn a knowledge of the world.
Little things are great to little men.
The loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.
Silence is become his mother tongue.
Silence gives consent.
Those who think must govern those that toil.
A traveler of taste will notice that the wise are polite all over the world, but the fool only at home.
Wealth accumulates, and men decay.
The first blow is half the battle.
Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies.
It has been well observed that few are better qualified to give others advice than those who have taken the least of it themselves.
True wisdom consists of tracing effects to their causes.
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
Ridicule has always been the enemy of enthusiasm, and the only worthy opponent to ridicule is success.
Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity; it is that which gives value to every character. The ignorant peasant, without fault, is greater than the philosopher with many; for what is genius or courage without a heart?
Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.
Hope, like the gleaming taper's light,
Adorns and cheers our way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.
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